


The (nonexistent) Love Triangle

by Leshy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Genderfluid Sherlock, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:37:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leshy/pseuds/Leshy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John meets a boy, and he meets a girl, and he quite fancies the both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (nonexistent) Love Triangle

**Author's Note:**

> So this was inspired by that tumblr post, where someone meets both a boy and a girl and falls in love with both, and sort of despairs a bit about how to choose between the two, but in the ned it's revealed that the boy and the girl were the same person.  
> Unbeta'ed

There’s a boy in his usual seat. John stops, coffee in one hand, muffin in the other, and bag slowly gliding off of his shoulder and if he doesn’t fix that soon he’ll be forced to walk with his arm at an awkward angle so it won’t fall off completely.  
It’s a two-person table in front of the back window of the coffee shop and it’s usually always free when he’s there regularly. But not today. Today there is a boy sitting there with books and papers covering two thirds of the table. The soft spring light from outside frames his hair and his face, his impeccably dressed frame. He doesn’t look much older than John himself, possibly a bit younger. 18, maybe 19, compared to Johns own 21; he is just a boy in that respect. They both are. His face is angular and pale, sharp cheekbones casting contrasting shadows. His hair is a dark raven black that curls unruly, and John watches as one long fingered hand rises to tousle them up further before sinking back down to the table. He takes a few steps forward until he’s standing next to the table.  
“Mind if I sit here?” in response he gets an affirmative sound and a dismissive wave of the hand. He sits and pulls out one of the medical textbooks he needs to read before the test. It’s quiet except for the rustling of paper and the occasional sip of tea and muffin nibble. Despite the seemingly still posture of the one opposite him, John still notes when he goes completely still and looks up to meet the strangers eyes. He’s transfixed instantaneously.  
“You’re not studying to become a paediatrician, so why’re you reading that?”  
His voice is a dark baritone and John has to suppress a shiver from that coupled with the intensity of that stare. He swallows once before glancing down at his own textbook.  
“Upcoming test, doesn’t matter if I’ll need it later or not.” He answers automatically before thinking about the question again.  
“And how do you know I’m not studying to become a paediatrician?”  
He rolls his eyes before fixing his eyes back on John, and god, those eyes.  
“Obvious, from your economic background, the fact that you’re studying medicine, and the obvious rapid increase in muscle mass over the past few months you’re planning on going into the army. Army doctor.” The words are fast, confident, but when he’s finished he turns his head to the window, as if something outside has suddenly caught his attention. John struggles to think of anything out there that could possibly capture the attention of this boy long enough.  
“That was…” shoulders clad in an expensive looking shirt and suit jacket tenses.  
“Absolutely amazing!” John breathes out and smiles. The strangers’ head whips back, curls bouncing lightly, to stare at him.  
“You really thing so?”  
“Of course! But how did you know?” the confidence is back as he begins to explain.  
“Well it’s quite obvious from your hand me down clothes, bag, and second hand text book that your family isn’t that well off, so why would you be able to afford going to Med school then? The answer is of course the stipend from the army, which was an easy guess due to the obvious ill fitting jumper you’re currently wearing but haven’t seemingly figured out is ill fitting yet because you regularly wear it, which is why it cannot be because of rugby even though you do play it.”  
John is confident in his own bisexuality, and he has been for a couple years now, once he finally came to terms with it. And the boy sitting here in front of him now is truly gorgeous, and all he can do is smile, slightly agape, at the brilliance that just left his mouth. His rosy mouth with a cupids bow. He stares into those eyes that seem to gleam quicksilver and reaches a hand across the table.  
“John. John Watson.”  
He reaches out and grabs Johns offered hand.  
“Sherlock Holmes.” He answers.  
And John is instantly smitten.

Although John keeps visiting the coffee shop as he usually does, he doesn’t run into Sherlock again. It disappoints him more than only a single meeting has any right to do. He decides that Sherlock wasn’t as interested as John himself was, and decides to put it out of his mind for now. 

It’s been three weeks, and John is headed for his table once more, but this time there is a girl seated there already. Her raven hair is pushed back and tied with a headband, she’s wearing a soft looking baby blue jumper and skinny jeans that hug her frame in all the right places. Her face is soft, and her mouth is a wonderful shade of pink. John finds himself lost for words before clearing his throat and asking,  
“This seat taken?”  
The girl looks up, her eyes are a soft light blue matching her jumper and John swears he could drown in that gaze.  
“Not at all.” Her voice is deep and powerful, but still feminine, and John sits as if in a trance.  
There’s a cup of tea in front of her, she sips it now and again, but her head is turned towards the window, watching the nearby colony of bees gather pollen and nectar from the rosebush outside. The silence is awkward to John, and he decides he ought to break it. He licks his lips, and sees her eyes dart to him from the corner of her eyes.  
“What’s your name?” he says. She turns to him, and gets a speculative look on her face, as if she’s deciding. As if her name is something she chooses on a whim from day to day.  
“Irene.” She finally says, as if she has decided on something. Maybe she has.  
“That’s a pretty name, I’m John.”  
“Thank you John, I borrowed it form a friend.”  
John smiles bemusedly, and distantly he thinks maybe he should be put off by it, but he’s not. He’s intrigued.  
They talk and joke and flirt, and when she gets up and says see you around, he really hopes he does. HE watches her go, heels clacking, and she’s so tall and the sway of her hips has both boys and girls in the shop look after her.  
John thinks to himself that Sherlock might not have been interested, but Irene seems like she might be.

Next week John finds himself delighted to see Sherlock sitting at his table again, ever as posh and put together. He sits down opposite and opens their conversation with  
“Long time no see, Sherlock.” Said boy turns from the window where he’d been watching the rain outside to smile at him.  
“Hello John.” The baritone voice is as pleasant as he remembers it.  
They talk and joke, John tries to flirt a bit to see if it’s welcome, and Sherlock seems perceptive enough. Sherlock leaves first, his black coffee finished.  
“I’ll see you around?” John calls after him. Sherlock half turns and smirks.  
“I’m sure you will.”  
John has butterflies in his stomach the rest of the day, and they won’t go away no matter how much he berates himself that he’s not a kid anymore. 

One and a half week later he sees Irene again. He sits down with her and asks.  
“Your name still Irene?” She smiles at him, ruby red lips and wavy hair, emerald shirt and skinny jeans. Her eyes are blue with a hint of green. John wonders if they’re affected by the clothes she wears, or if it’s the makeup.  
“Molly, today.”  
“Cute name, another borrowed one?”  
“Indeed.”  
She seems guarded at first, as if her weird name habits will put John off, but as he talks and jokes like he did before she warms up, and they have an altogether pleasant time.

This is how the spring passes, and then the summer. He doesn’t go away because he has a part time job, and he visits the coffee shop. Sometimes he meets Sherlock, sometimes the mystery girl without a fixed name. He berates himself for falling for two people at the same time. They both seem to like him enough back, but he doesn’t want to lead any one of them on. It plagues him sometimes. Sherlock tells him about cases, how he’s working to becoming a consulting detective (the only one in the world), and it’s fascinating. He drags John along on a few town wide chases at one point, and afterwards Sherlock seems like he’s afraid he’s scared him away, until he sees the look on Johns face. A manic grin to match his own. She talks about bees, how she wants to be a beekeeper. She knows so much about them and John is never tired of hearing her speak about them, no matter how much or what the topic might be. Communication to reproduction, and any and all in between. He usually talks about medicine, about his family, about rugby. 

One day late summer, one of those days when John finds the table empty and sits down, Sherlock plonks himself down in front of him, and looks at him with a strange intensity. He’s used to those deep searching looks by now, but this seems different. Sherlock seems to search for an answer inside his head, rather than one he can observe on the surface.  
“You confuse me, John Watson.” He finally says. John looks at him bewildered.  
“How do I confuse you?”  
“For the past four months you’ve been speaking to both me and her, but you make no remarks, don’t ask questions, don’t talk to either of us about the other so-“ Sherlock stops abruptly. The look on Johns face must have given him the answer he was looking for, or one that could resemble it.  
“You didn’t know.” This does nothing to ease the confusion currently settled deep within his being. His face must say as much because Sherlock clarifies, before rising from the chair and stalking from the café.  
We’re the same person.  
Somewhere in his head, a part of John says that that makes a whole lot of sense. The rest of him has short-circuited. The same person. It takes him all of then seconds to gather his wits and dash out after Sherlock.  
“Sherlock!” he calls after him. He doesn’t turn from where he is currently stalking towards the back garden of the café.  
“Wait!” he jogs to catch up to the impossibly tall figure, and once he does he grabs his hand to halt him. Sherlock turns on him and barks,  
“What?” john tries to catch his breath, tries to formulate a sentence that’ll make sense, but he can’t find his words. Sherlock tries to pull away and it jolts something loose inside John’s chest, and his words spill out into the open air.  
“Since I met you both I’ve been worried.” Sherlock freezes.  
“I’ve been worried I’ve been leading one of you on, but I couldn’t figure out who I could give up for the other. I was worried I’d have to choose, because frankly I fancy the pants off of the both of you.” And there it was, in a very inelegant way, his confession.  
Sherlock turns to stare at him.  
“And now I know why. I’m not one to fall in love with two people at the same time, but they’re both you. So it makes sense, because you’re brilliant, whether we’re chasing trough the town or talking about bees. Whether you’re wearing a suit or makeup, or hell, both. It’s all fine, because it’s you.”  
Sherlock who had eventually turned to fully face John, whose hand was still held loosely in Johns own, was looking gobsmacked for what John would wager to be the first time in his life.  
“John, would you like to be my boyfriend?” he asks in a stunned whisper. John smiles.  
“Yes you big idiot.” And with that Sherlock unfreezes, smiles the biggest smile John has seen on him yet, and leans down to kiss him.


End file.
